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Sea Shepherd

19th February 2006, 20:30

Email received 17th Feb 2006:

Hello Mr. Paul Ward,

I have just read you fact page about Antartic whaling and I am glad that people have this info available. I have just returned from Antartica and have seen Japan and there killing machine at work. We did everything in our power to interupt there whaling but were unsucesful due to the fact that our ship was to slow.

For further facts and info please visit www.seashepherd.org They are a very progressive direct action organization and the only international law inforcment agency in the world. Keep the information flowing. I hope that in the near future the world will learn or be forced to stop this horrible slaughter.

Sincerly
Trevor VanDerGulik
Marine Engineer

Hi Trevor,
Many thanks for your email, great to hear from someone who was on the Sea Shepherd. I was following your progress while you were trying to stop the Japanese whalers as were many other members of the Cool Antarctica Forum. I hope you don't mind my posting your email and this reply there, you might like to take a look:

<this post>

or even reply there..?

"We did everything in our power to interupt there whaling but were unsucesful due to the fact that our ship was to slow."

Don't underestimate the effect the publicity about your voyage had on the world - your effect may not have been immediate, but it hopefully will be long lasting.

Comment

It has been 15 years since excessive overfishing by Newfoundland destroyed the North Atlantic cod populations. Back then, the Newfoundland fishermen and the Canadian politicians swore they knew what they were doing and insisted the cod numbers were healthy right up until the day the entire fishery collapsed.

They all acted shocked when the cod fishery died although conservationists had been warning them for years that collapse was inevitable.

The cod are not expected to recover.

Currently, the same ?experts? are insisting that the seals populations are healthy even as they slaughter over 325,000 each year in what is the largest mass slaughter of any marine mammal population anywhere in the world.

Now, the latest fiasco is the mismanagement and greed of the crab fishery that has resulted in another crash and this financial blow coupled with the international boycott of all Canadian seafood products has just hit Newfoundland with the force of an economic sledge hammer.

This week about 700 seafood processing workers were laid off after Sea Treat Ltd. shut down plants in three rural Newfoundland communities and one in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia.

This is the latest is a recent string of plant closings.

"We could be heading towards a crisis," Newfoundland Prime Minister Danny Williams said. "A lot of these things that are happening here are things that are completely out of our control."

It appears Danny Williams has just realized what many environmentalists have known for years ? that Newfoundland is heading once again into another crisis.

The union representing nearly 20,000 Newfoundlanders are worried. Plummeting shellfish and crab prices have been the major force behind the sagging state of the fisheries this season, said Earle McCurdy, president of the Fish, Food and Allied Workers Union.

The Sea Treat closings are part of a wider malaise plaguing the fisheries, said George Rose, professor and chairman of fisheries conservation with Memorial University's Marine Institute.

The Newfoundlanders as usual are blaming everyone but themselves. They blame the rising value of the Canadian dollar, competition for crab from the United States and China, higher fuel prices, and of course, they blame the seals, the whales, the seabirds, and the animal rights and conservation organizations.

?The seafood boycott is not helping,? said one Newfoundland fisherman. ?Our products are being given a bad name because of these stinking seal lovers,? he complained.

The boycott is having an effect. Fishery Products International Ltd., considered the vanguard of the fishing business in Newfoundland and Labrador and crucial to the economic livelihood of the province's south coast, lost $10.5-million last year. Created by the federal and provincial governments from the bankrupt shells of previously collapsed firms, FPI has temporarily closed its Marystown operation, putting 650 employees out of work for the first five months of this year. The company also plans to permanently close its Fortune plant, eliminating 345 jobs, in July. Former employees in Harbour Breton haven't worked for more than two years, except for top-up projects to extend their employment insurance claims.

If Newfoundland is to recover they must learn to live in harmony with all the species that humans are independent with. A healthy population of seals is essential for a healthy fish population. That is an ecological fact.

Newfoundland is in economic dire straits because of gross incompetence, mismanagement, and greed in their fishing industries over the last century. Scape-goating the seals instead of curbing their greed has brought them to where they are today.

?Perhaps it is time that Newfoundlanders look at taking a more ecologically-healthy approach to living off the ocean.? Said Captain Paul Watson. ?Wiping out seals and seabirds, whales, and fish is not the smartest thing to do if you wish to survive and live by the sea.?

The Canadian seafood boycott is growing and it will continue to grow until Canada abolishes the mass cruel slaughter of hundreds of thousands of seal pups every spring.

The Canadian government refuses to acknowledge that the international Boycott of Canadian Seafood products is having an effect despite the fact that they are funding public relations campaigns to counter the impact of the boycott.

The Canadian government has for years unfortunately been unable to see the cause and effect of their economic woes until it is too late. Perhaps they will acknowledge the boycott when the final fish processing worker is laid off and sent home.

Comment

I just dont know how they get away with it, lethal reasearch them japanese they laugh at iwc they have been bare faced caught doing piracy in the oceans and still they are allowed to slaughter whales,they have stock piles of whale meat and still they continue to kill i see them as murderers, that japanese government are responsible why are they behind an impenatrable barrier, they are not gods why are they so untouchable.

Comment

Once again japan misses the point as thousands of whales are being slaughtered while there processor is being filled up with blood - literally. It is illegal to whale in the Antarctica Whale Sanctuary. Doing so should be grounds to sink all your ships. Sea Shepherd is being nice in my opinion. If you want to whale do it in your own waters. duh

Comment

Once again japan misses the point as thousands of whales are being slaughtered while there processor is being filled up with blood - literally. It is illegal to whale in the Antarctica Whale Sanctuary. Doing so should be grounds to sink all your ships. Sea Shepherd is being nice in my opinion. If you want to whale do it in your own waters. duh

But I suppose the research data must be gathered from various locations, not just within the Japanese territory.

I generally support regulated whaling if it is really sustainable as Japanese scientists say it is. But what exactly is this "Antarctica Whale Sanctuary"? Who set up this Sanctuary?

Comment

There is no such thing as scientific whaling it is just a guise so that japan can keep killing whales for profit. Whaling is not needed in this new world and those who kill for profit should learn harsh lessons!!!! the antartic whale sanctuary has been established for many years and so has the ignorance of Japan's industry!

I emailed the Japanese Whaling Association on more than one occasion asking for evidence of their scientific findings (originally in January 2002):

Hi there,

I have a web site www.coolantarctica.com that is a general Antarctica site. I am in the process of adding a "whales and whaling" section. I have no particular axe to grind or alternative agenda, I wish to present information to an audience that consists of many schools and teachers. The section will contain basic facts and pictures about whales, historical information and present day information.

Would it be possible to present some of the scientific information on my site that has been found by the Japanese whaling programme? The whaling pages are not yet in place, perhaps you would want to see them first, but they will be presented in the same manner as the pages on travel in Antarctica where I have contributions and links about pro and anti-tourism.

My own position is as a concerned naturalist eager to promote Antarctica, I do not suffer from the mawkish anthropomorphism of some campaigners. If you were able to contribute anything, I would happy to submit the page that I use it in for your approval or otherwise before publishing it on my site.

Best regards
Paul Ward

I never received a reply.

There are a number of publications on the JWA website, but they all seem to aim in the direction that the "scientific" aspect of the whaling is to determine if it possible to continue commercial whaling.

This is very different to what most people would understand by scientific research into whales.

I am interested 4islands in why you support regulated whaling when the means of killing has been shown time and again to be the most barbaric manner of killing any animal for human consumption that there is?

When the killing is totally unnecessary for food production (though was not always so historically) why should it now continue?

Comment

There are a number of publications on the JWA website, but they all seem to aim in the direction that the "scientific" aspect of the whaling is to determine if it possible to continue commercial whaling.

This is very different to what most people would understand by scientific research into whales.

I am interested 4islands in why you support regulated whaling when the means of killing has been shown time and again to be the most barbaric manner of killing any animal for human consumption that there is?

When the killing is totally unnecessary for food production (though was not always so historically) why should it now continue?

Have you been to the web site of the Institute of Cetacean Research? They may have the kind of information you are looking for.

I have heard that there are over a million minke whales today. If that is a more or less accurate estimate, taking a couple of thousand from that reserve a year sounds sustainable, now that only a few countries are interested in whaling today. In fact, the Japanese Fishery Agency says that it will protect 98% of whales in the world, which sounds more than reasonable.

Comment

Have you been to the web site of the Institute of Cetacean Research? They may have the kind of information you are looking for.

I have heard that there are over a million minke whales today. If that is a more or less accurate estimate, taking a couple of thousand from that reserve a year sounds sustainable, now that only a few countries are interested in whaling today. In fact, the Japanese Fishery Agency says that it will protect 98% of whales in the world, which sounds more than reasonable.

The research on the site you link to seems to confirm what I said. The research is all to gauge stocks and the possible sustainability of a fishery.

No planned fishery - no research needed - no whales need be killed.

Although all the whales killed for "research" were all sold for meat in Japan, so it was a commercial fishery all along anyhow. Seems I was a little wide-eyed and naive thinking there may have been some real "research" going on rather than just an annual look-see so the whalers could start killing again in earnest.

From the "Institute for Cetacean Research" website:

Japan's Whale Research: What's it all about?

Research. Basing decisions on fact, not fiction. Scientific research is an essential part of the conservation and management of all marine resources, including whales. The International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling requires that all of its regulations be based on scientific findings. In 1987 Japan established a scientific whale research program to study Southern Ocean Minke whales and the Antarctic ecosystem. This is the world's only long-term study providing information on the role of whales in the ecosystem and the effects of environmental changes on whales. A research program began in the North Pacific in 1994. If limited commercial capture of any species of whale is to be reintroduced it must be based on scientific evidence which proves there is no risk posed to that species' long-term numbers or status.

Other countries didn't need to carry out research as they didn't intend to start commercial whaling again.

As far as I'm concerned, this has only served to prove that the bogus research was designed to find a pre-defined end result.

Killing whales to research when is the best time to start killing whales for commercial gain is cynical and verging on the fraudulent as an excuse!

Thank you for drawing my attention to this website.

You still haven't given an answer to my previous question:

I am interested 4islands in why you support regulated whaling when the means of killing has been shown time and again to be the most barbaric manner of killing any animal for human consumption that there is?

Or do you not care? A further qusetion - what is your connection with the Japanese whaling industry?

Comment

After reading all of this I felt that I had to put in my two cents worth. I can't in all honesty understand the "Antarctica Sancutuary". I don't think that the whales can tell the difference between "sabctuarised" waters and those not so blessed.......all of the oceans should be whaling free. If the humans can't seem to understand the simple concept of "Don't touch!" how can we expect the whales to understand that there are some waters which are not safe for swimming.....perhaps whales need to be trained to "swim between the flags"??? Yes, I guess it kind of incenses me to see such harmless creatures, majestic creatures being treated like peasants, and all for the laughable ecuse of "research!" It's kind of like people who keep birds in cages...they have wings for a reason.

I feel better now.
psr

Comment

They are not reasearching the whales they are shooting them with exploding harpoons,male females in calf makes no difference, they take their quota no matter what only for the fire they had this year they would have done it in the antarctic too.
The whales have no sanctuary the japanese get round that too, no one else can fish in the antarctic waters like that they sell the whale meat to the rich which fund buying votes for whaling at the I.W.C they take about a 1000 whales per quota been going on say at least 20yrs that's 20,000 whales.